25 TV Dads we wish were ours

Photo: FOX

Michael Bluth – Arrested Development

Technically, Michael Bluth only has the one son: sweet, naive, soft-spoken George Michael. But in reality, Michael has to parent his entire eccentric family when he’s forced to return home to run the family business, when Michael’s father goes to white collar prison. The role of patriarch falls to him, and he begrudgingly takes care of his family . It’s not easy task – the Bluths are a nutty bunch. (By the way, “nutty bunch” is the understatement of the century.)

The most endearing part of Michael’s job as a father to George Michael is his compulsion to protect him from the craziness that surrounds him. His mother, Lucille has very little maternal instincts; his brother Gob (with a soft ‘g’) is a raging, self-destructive narcissist; and his sister’s refusal to grow up makes her relationship to estranged husband Tobias awkward, at best.

George Michael has been sheltered from the Bluth craziness his whole life, so when he’s plopped down in the middle of it, Michael is worried. In fact, Michael is the most neurotic, worried father on the list. He’s so tense and strained that George Micheal is negatively effected, his over-parenting gets to be the joke. He’s like a cautionary tale of how not to smother your children.